Greg, First let's go back to the original post. You were offered suggestions as to what the problem may have been. You were also told MANY times that you were approaching the problem incorrectly when you kept mentioning the web interface. You still insisted that there had to be a way to do something and then went on to say how you could get root access and so on and so on. You chose to ignore the advice that was given to you by certified technicians. Your description sounded to me like a dead battery and my recommendation was to find an Intertel dealer who can troubleshoot and repair the problem. You again chose to ignore the advice but instead bash Intertel and demean telephone technicians by suggesting anyone can do this. You then go on to make several statements that make absolutely no sense at all. Lets cover a few.
"(though in the computer field it takes MANY more than 2 wires to make a valid connection)."
This one is laughable. You are not only in the company of telephone and IT professionals but also structured cabling experts. Most of us are well aware of whats required for voice and data cabling as we do this for a living every single day. FYI before you spout off any more nonsense. Many phone systems use 2 and some even 4 cable pairs to operate. That is MANY more than a computer.
"Having ANY system that has a default status of non-operational is a VERY poor design."
This one again is silly. Lets take a random company and look at their operational model. How about Cisco? What happens when a Cisco router loses its startup-config and reboots? Or how about a Sonicwall router? How about an Exchange Server? In its default state what is it good for? So then with your line of reasoning these companies are all concerned with the bottom dollar and not the customer's needs? I can just see you standing in front of the client explaining how their problems are a result of Intertel's shady business models when in fact their problems were a direct result of YOU now knowing anything about the phone system you were working on.
"As far as the programming of the phone systems, that is no different than the multitude of computer applications customers use to solve different problems"
Again so far off base here. That is like saying that programming a Cisco router is the same as learning how to use Peachtree. there is so much underlying information that needs to be known. Just like you need to understand IP addressing, subnetting, routing, CLI, and a ton of other things to configure a Cisco router you also need to understand quite a bit about the telephony field in general before you can competently service and maintain telephone systems.
I need coffee!
